Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

It was a tricky question. It came down to how many raiders were violently determined to come aboard and what kind of weapons they had. (That scenario could turn out any way from “we thought this was an easy target, let’s run away” to Rajpreet making a desperate last stand with her sidearm over the pieces of what was left of my body.) If they sent an EVAC-suited boarding party down the outside of the hull and came in through one of the hatches in the baseship as well as this one— But that wasn’t what my clients needed to hear right now.

On comm, I said, “Yes.”

Rajpreet’s throat moved as she swallowed, and she muted her feed. She said aloud, “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

I would definitely do that, as soon as I knew. Assuming worse-case scenario (and coincidentally getting her out of my way so I didn’t have to worry about saving a human while I was trying to kill/maim/discourage a bunch of other humans), it was best for her to take up a guard position at the entrance to the gravity well, to at least buy the baseship some time. I was about to tell her to do that.

A jolt vibrated through the deck and a sudden uncompensated surge of acceleration knocked Rajpreet flat. I hit the bulkhead and slid down as my drones scattered. The lights fluctuated again and the life support cut out, then back in.

Oh, this is not good. My plan (make that “plan”) depended on holding the intruders back until the armed station responder or the angry raider-hating merchants got close enough to scare them off. But my bridge drone was reading displays that indicated the hostile had grabbed the facility with the tractors transports use to attach and detach modules. It was pulling us close, intending to clamp us onto its hull and drag us into the wormhole with it. From their frantic cursing, Roa and Mihail agreed.

I got upright and caught Rajpreet’s flailing arm to help her stand. The facility’s comm came back online with a static-obscured warning alarm. Yes, great, that’s really helpful right now.

A survey member, Adjat, staggered into the foyer from the corridor that led to the facility’s lowest storage and lab space. Rajpreet told them, “Get up to crew level, hurry!”

Adjat nodded, heading for the corridor. “Hatches are jammed to labs 3 and 4, I don’t know if anyone’s trapped—”

“They’re doing a headcount up there,” Rajpreet said, pushing them on toward the access.

I had an idea, though it had its downside. On the feed, I said, Roa, can the baseship jettison the facility?

The baseship itself was just a small carrier, with bridge, drives, and living space for the five-person crew. Most of its bulk was designed to be able to grab or deploy the facility module.

Mihail replied, calm but breathless, He’s working on it, checking sensor view to see if our clamps are clear—

So they had already thought of it. It was nice working with smart humans. Now if I could just keep them all alive.

A lot of my attention was on the hatch two meters away from me. I was scanning for any attempt to breach it, either physically or via the hostile’s feed. I tried a breach of my own through the feed, but the hostile’s wall was so solid I couldn’t get any kind of read off it.

On my feed relay, Arada said, We can remote-jettison from here—the facility command center—if you transfer control. But we need to get the rest of the team up to the baseship.

Ratthi added, I’m doing a headcount now, but with the feed and comm not responding—

Roa broke in: Our clamps are clear, we can jettison .

Arada said, Roa, will they be able to scan us? If they can tell we’ve abandoned the facility—

Roa replied, They may be able to.

They would definitely be able to. Before anybody else could butt in, I said, They may fire on the baseship once the facility is jettisoned.

That was the downside I mentioned. It just depended on how anxious the hostile was to get to the wormhole with the facility before the responder and merchants arrived, whether they were ordinary assholes or huge assholes, if they wanted the facility or the humans in the facility, if they were afraid of retaliation by Preservation or just didn’t care.

The survey team members still trying to talk on the relay feed all shut up.

Roa said, Yes, that’s… Yes. Dr. Arada, we don’t have a lot of time, do we evacuate and jettison or—?

Still sounding calm, Arada said, SecUnit, do you agree we should jettison?

Oh right, I was the security team head.

If I/we were wrong about this, the hostile would fire on the helpless baseship and we would all die. If we stayed with the facility, there might be a chance for rescue. If the hostiles didn’t drag us into the wormhole, overwhelm me, and kill all the humans or do other terrible things to them.

The cheap education modules the company gives SecUnits had never mentioned this kind of dilemma, so I didn’t have anything strategic to go on.

Ugh, self-determination sucks sometimes.

I reminded myself I had always wanted humans to listen to my advice. I said, Jettison .

Arada said, We jettison. Ratthi, confirm head count and send everyone up to the baseship. She sounded calm and certain. Much more so than Roa.

“Attacker is still pulling us toward the wormhole,” Mihail announced on comm, not sounding too much like someone who was restraining the urge to scream a little.

On the relay, I heard Ratthi yelling at people to get moving and I got sporadic drone views of survey team members hurrying into the gravity well.

Roa took a breath. “Facility control, prepare for separation.”

Overse announced, “Facility module will seal in two minutes and counting.”

Drone audio picked up someone arguing but I had to prioritize Roa and Mihail and Arada, who were all telling different humans to do different things. My bridge drone’s view of the sensor display started to show more interpretable detail. That big wobbly thing was the wormhole. The two blips way off (way way off) in the distance were our potential rescue ships. There was no blip for the hostile because it was too close.

Another vibration traveled through the deck but this one was more familiar. Rajpreet’s gaze was on the hatch display, her eyes wide. She whispered, “They attached to our lock.”

Whispering may have been an irrational impulse, but I could definitely sympathize. I said on the feed relay, Hostile has matched locks .

Overse said, Ratthi, I need a confirmed head count, now. My gravity well drone picked up two stragglers, Remy and Hanifa, scrambling up the ladders to the baseship and Ratthi, for fuck’s sake, coming back down.

I started to tap his feed but I picked up something on audio. It was scraping, vibrating through the outer hatch. Okay, that’s definitely happening. I sent on the feed, Hostile is attempting to breach the hatch, boarding may be imminent .

Roa said, Rajpreet, SecUnit, get out of there .

I told Rajpreet, “Go, I’ll be behind you.”

Rajpreet backed toward the corridor access. If the hostiles chose this moment to board, before we could seal off and separate, we were screwed.

I heard Ratthi yell, “No, No!” through my drone audio. His voice was harsh with fury, fear. The impulse to run to him made me flinch, but I needed to hold my position. Something had gone wrong up there. On the feed, I said, Dr. Ratthi, report .

Ratthi, of all my humans except Dr. Mensah, listens to me the most carefully. Probably it has something to do with the time he was about to step out of the hopper to retrieve some equipment and if he had, he would have been eaten by giant predatory fauna. Sounding simultaneously frustrated, angry, and terrified, Ratthi said, Amena and Kanti aren’t here. Thiago is looking for them. They aren’t in the quarters or the upper labs, they must be down in the lower level somewhere.